We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Before the fall… I have not yet read ‘American Empire: Before the Fall’ yet myself but have been hearing a great deal about it.
I do not myself believe America is going to ‘fall’. Quite the contrary, I believe it is the ruling class in America that is about to go through a very big fall, albeit with some bad short term consequences for the nation before that occurs.
The very fact that a self-published book can rise so far in the Amazon rankings is a testament to just how ticked off average Americans are with the power elite.
Their day of reckoning is coming.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Well I have long had the theory that the elites hate the American Revolution and instead love the French Revolution.
One can only hope the irony will be grand.
I don’t think it’s in the nature of power elites to allow themselves to fall, unless there is absolutely nothing they can do about it, and that, I think, is when the wheels are coming off the whole civilisation/way-of-life in which they exist. And then I would imagine they would make sure that everyone else goes first being as it’s human nature to walk the plank last, if possible. Witness the way we feed our everyday crocodiles.
The current elite is enabled by technology like no elite has been before, so I would imagine their fall, and ours too, would be utterly comprehensive; as all-encompassing as our indeed, brilliant technology, would make possible.
It is not just the “ruling class” that will fall Dale.
The United States is bankrupt – the financial system is a credit bubble joke, and the entitlement programs CAN NOT be sustained.
A lot more than the “ruling class” are going to suffer – and suffer a great deal.
However, I hope you are correct that most people are starting to understand the CAUSES of the comming time of troubles. That they know that the “monetary and fiscal stimulus” and the “compassionate government with its public services” is the cause (not the cure).
If most people do understand this – then, eventually, nothing will save the power of the academic, media and political elite.
This is a empirical matter – as there are several ordinary political contests comming up that will show the truth (one way or the other).
For example, both Sharon Angle and Rand Paul are denounced by the media and the education system as being “against basic public services and benefits” and “against the modern financial system”.
Many MILLIONS of Dollars is being spent by the left on getting this message to voters (on top of all the free media). And it is basically a TRUE attack – in that people like Angle and Paul really do think that Social Security (etc) is a Ponzi Scheme and that the financial system is a credit bubble farce.
So, for once, the left are speaking close to the truth.
But what if Sharon Angle and Rand Paul (and…..) WIN in November?
What if, when told that certain candidates totally oppose the basis of the modern (statist) system, most people then vote for them?
The left will have a collective nervious breakdown.
And your prediction will become fact.
The soi disant elites in the USA are far from elite. Actually they are a bunch of slobs. As a linguistics prof I have been chronicling a version of English used by these miscreants known as Sloblish. In fact if it were not for more or less universal literacy in the US and standard English still dominant in print in spite of the gonnas and wannas that appear in some cutting edge journalism, I could envision in the not sio distant future standard English breaking up into variants of the original tongue. The other notable feature of the pseudo elites is that their knowledge of pure and applied science is non-existent. At best they have mastered the use of scissors but taken as a group they are all the lowest of the low of the techno peasantry.
“Well I have long had the theory that the elites hate the American Revolution and instead love the French Revolution.”
That says it all.
As an outsider looking in I feel that one complicating factor in the possible fall of the USA is that it is indeed the United States of America. The current political class, (including, as noted, academia and the MSM), is seeking to impose ever greater federalism on the people, but several state governments are baulking at these impositions.
Arizona is attempting to control illegal immigration in the absence of federal action, and other states are watching on while the Federal government attempt to claim in court that immigration is their prerogative and if they choose not to enforce the law then the states can just put up with it.
Meanwhile, Virginia is claiming in court that ‘Obamacare’ is unconstitutional, and several other States are bringing their own suits.
These actions by various States are getting plenty of support and, if the feds blink, it still remains possible that a true reversal of federal power, (rather than the temporary slowdowns of recent Republican administrations), can take place relatively peacefully.
It also remains possible for a democratic reversal of the power of the feds. This however will take a lot of work. It is possible under the US system for the citizen to boot out the political class, (at least the politician portion of the elite). By taking over the local party machine, getting sympathetic pols on the ballot for primaries, and then pushing them for state and national elections, citizens can change the nature of their government.
It is, as I said, hard work, but it has been done before. How do you think the proggs took over the Democratic party?
Much depends on the outcomes of the next two federal elections. If the usual suspects in Washington get their knuckles rapped hard enough, it is possible that the survivors will step back from the brink, but if they feel they can revert to business as usual after a few soothing platitudes, then it could get messy.
There is some possibility that the coalition of the political class with the academic class will begin to deteriorate, even disintegrate (in the true sense of that term). The beginning may be seen in the movements to end “tenure.”
The capacity of the political class to increasingly succor (should that be “sucker”?) the academic class is being depleted.
Still, these events are not likely to create a “vacuum;”
any more than a dying down of the winds on the moor.
That may be true, but if you watch many TED Talks it’s not hard to get the impression that a sizable proportion of those with scientific or technical literacy willingly follow the “pseudo elite” on political matters.
Well I have long had the theory that the elites hate the American Revolution and instead love the French Revolution.
It is a global litmus test for progressives generally. The opposite is most probably true for libertarians.
Aetius – agreed (on all points).
Kevin B, you are correct. Thirty-five years ago, the majority of American states had voted to convene a Constitutional Convention independent of the U.S. Congress. It didn’t happen because the movement never reached the required three-quarters majority of the states. The election of Reagan and a Republican Senate led to legislative solutions to the problems which provoked the Constitutional Convention movement. If economic conditions become again as bad as the 1970’s, the United States will again face a Constitutional crisis which the states will have to lead the federal government out of.
“The soi disant elites in the USA are far from elite. Actually they are a bunch of slobs. As a linguistics prof I have been chronicling a version of English used by these miscreants known as Sloblish………” – Millie Woods
I guess some attitudes never change.
“Men admired as profound philosophers gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America — that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere.” – Alexander Hamilton
Kevin B, your remarks are perceptive considering you are not American, i.e., not as intimately familiar with American politics as a resident would be. (May I assume that is the meaning of your opening phrase?) If I might quibble on a minor semantic matter, however: Your use of the word “federalism” gives that word a meaning opposite what we in the U.S. understand it to be. While we use the word “federalize” to refer to an attempt in a given situation to increase the power of the federal government relative to that of the states, when we talk about “federalism” we are referring to the opposite situation, i.e., an increase in the freedom of states to pursue their own policies independent of the national government’s power.